Chapter 171: Sudden Misfortune

Difo was a general of the Griffin Kingdom’s western border defense army, with over 3000 men under his command, responsible for the safety of the area where the Kingdom bordered the Gobi. He was born into a small noble family in the Imperial Capital. Relying on some talent and marrying a fat, ugly miss from the Augustus Family who was so terrible she almost couldn’t be married off, he managed to get to his current position. Although his rank wasn’t high, he held real power . The border region, aside from some annoying Robbers, was generally peaceful. Moreover, there were many passing caravans here where he could skim off the top, earning over ten thousand Gold Coins in oil money every year.

Now, having skimmed for over ten years, he was also a bit tired of it. He kept thinking about returning to the Imperial Capital to enjoy life. And now, a good opportunity happened to be right in front of him. As long as he helped the family take down that annoying little Castle and occupied it accordingly, he could return to the Imperial Capital as a hero, and a well-paid position would be waiting for him.

For this, he didn’t hesitate to work hard, personally struggled for several months, and even spent some of his own money, finally assembling the supplies and transport materials for over 2000 troops to go deep into the Gobi. And through the connections he had accumulated over the years, he invited three large Mercenary organizations, bringing four or five Level 6 Experts alone. No choice, after all, the internal situation of that Wuwei Castle wasn’t very clear, but one thing Difo confirmed from his family members was that there were at least 10 Cyclops in the Castle.

Difo knew that this terrifying Level 6 ranged unit was extremely powerful in defense, so he treated this so solemnly, hiring Experts and not daring to be negligent at all, afraid something might go wrong. And even on the marching road, he was extra careful. Every time they set up camp, he was extremely cautious, not only protecting the important water carts heavily in the middle of the army but also dispatching cavalry to scout everywhere, afraid of being raided.

Difo led by example. Every night he inspected the camp, always the last to rest. Today was no exception. Difo, having just inspected the camp once, returned to his tent and sat down on the blanket, too tired to move.

At this moment, Difo’s orderly walked in with a basin of water, placed it at Difo’s feet, and laughed, “General, you’ve worked hard all day. Wash your feet quickly!”

“Oh, damn it, didn’t I tell you my fresh water is very precious?” Difo immediately said dissatisfied, “Now is not the time to waste water on washing feet!”

“Don’t worry, General.” The orderly laughed and said, “In another 10 days, we can reach the Oasis. And our remaining water can last for 12 days. You can even wash your feet twice a day, no problem!”

“But if the people below find out, it will look bad!” Difo said, still hesitating.

“How could that be? You are the General! It is only right that you get special treatment! Besides, I will secretly dispose of the water in a bit. They are all asleep, so no one will know. You don’t have to worry at all,” the orderly quickly urged.

“Oh, is that so?” Difo thought for a moment. In the end, he could not escape the temptation. He let the orderly take off his shoes and socks and then comfortably put his feet into the water. Ah, an incredibly comfortable feeling immediately arose, making Difo, who was exhausted all over, almost feel intoxicated at that moment.

The comfortable feeling made Difo, who was already very tired, fall into a trance, so that he unknowingly closed his eyes and fell asleep.

The orderly carefully took Difo’s feet out of the water and began to wipe them with soft linen cloth.

However, just at that moment, outside suddenly came a roar of shocking explosions. Difo, who had been sleeping, was startled awake at once. He jumped up on the spot, not even caring about putting on his shoes, and just ran out barefoot. He looked in the direction where the explosions came from and was immediately dumbfounded.

It turned out that he saw the group of large carts that had been strictly protected in the distance had now completely turned into flames and fragments. He did not know what thing had caused a super strong explosion in the dense formation of carts. Nearly a hundred large carts were mostly destroyed. Especially the water carts carrying water, almost all of them were damaged. Either they were completely blown to pieces, or they were hit by flying fragments with big and small holes. The precious clear water surged out, but not a single person could save it.

Upon seeing this scene, Difo was immediately dumbfounded. He could not help but say, “It’s over, it’s all over!”

“General, quickly call people to save it!” the orderly shouted loudly from the side.

Difo then woke up and hurriedly shouted with all his strength, “Quick, save the clear water for me, quick!”

After saying that, Difo did not care about putting on his shoes himself. He just boarded a horse beside him barefoot, and then took dozens of personal soldiers and rushed to the place where the accident happened.

When he arrived and looked, goodness, the ground was covered with scattered corpses and wood fragments. The most conspicuous things were several large pits on the ground, which were obviously the center of the explosion. And there were almost no intact vehicles around, especially the water carts, the losses were particularly heavy. Just now, he was far away and could not see clearly. Now that he walked closer, he discovered that the other side seemed to have specifically chosen the water carts to attack, so that most of the water carts were blown to pieces. Only three or five had not fallen apart yet, but there were cracks or holes in the side walls, and clear water was constantly flowing out.

Several soldiers who had arrived early could not care about saving their injured companions, and first used their hands and clothes to block the holes where the water was flowing. Unfortunately, there were too many cracks. They could block one or two, but they could not block dozens, right?

Seeing this, Difo hurriedly called his personal soldiers to help, and then he looked around himself, wanting to find the attackers. But he looked for a long time and did not find any fighting around the military camp. It seemed that only his side had been plotted against, and other places were completely fine!

Seeing this, Difo immediately could not help but curse loudly, “Damn it, there must be a Spy who sneaked in! Otherwise, they would not only destroy this place. Guards, where are the guards guarding this place?”

“Report to the General, of the more than 200 people stationed here, they either died in battle or are seriously injured and unconscious. Not a single one has woken up yet!” an officer who arrived early reported.

“Oh, no!” Difo said angrily, “That means we don’t even know who the Spy is?”

“No, General, I think this is easy to deduce. Such a terrible explosion is obviously the masterpiece of a Mage. But among our people, there are no Mages, right?” that officer reminded, “But in that group of Mercenaries, there seem to be a few who are Mages.”

“Ah, I understand!” Difo could not help nodding and said, “Obviously, those Mages are all suspects!”

Just at this moment, the leaders of several Mercenary Groups also arrived. After seeing all this, they were also dumbfounded on the spot. After all, they were people who often walked on this road, so they naturally knew what clear water meant. Now discovering that the clear water was almost completely lost, several people could not help changing their faces. One of them immediately exclaimed, “Oh! Damn it, how could this happen? General Difo, what exactly happened?”

“What happened?” Difo said angrily, “Isn’t this obvious? A Spy sneaked into our camp and destroyed our most precious water source!”

“Spy? Where?” that guy immediately asked suspiciously.

“This should be asked to you!” Difo said furiously.

“Ask us?” that guy immediately sneered, “General, I must remind you, the people guarding the water source are yours!”

“But the ones destroying the water source are Mages!” Difo roared, “You don’t think I have that kind of thing in my hands, do you?”

“That’s not necessarily true. Maybe you hid a Mage in the army. Besides, there are 200 living people watching here. Could a Mage come in without anyone noticing, and then continuously release so many Spells?” another Regiment Leader sneered, “Spells of this power are at least Level 4 or above. Do you think our people are Saint Domain Experts? Can they cast Level 4 Spells instantly?”

“There absolutely won’t be Mages among my people. Besides, what good does destroying this mission do for me? I spent a lot of money to build vehicles, gather subordinates, prepare food and fodder, and even hire you, and personally ran here. Was it just to watch fireworks?” Difo roared, “This is too ridiculous!”

“Then how do you see this matter?” a Regiment Leader said, “You know, we are all very reputable people. We took the money and will abide by the agreement. We simply won’t do such a thing.”

“Yes, you are very reputable, but the problem is, I don’t know if you only took my money. I suspect that one of your teams took double pay, including money from the bandits in that Castle in addition to mine. So they came to sabotage!” Difo said angrily.

“…” Several Regiment Leaders frowned after hearing this. Obviously, they also had self-awareness. They knew the reputation of Mercenary Groups was not very good, and perhaps such a thing might really happen. But they didn’t know exactly who it was, so they didn’t dare to speak, afraid of becoming the object of suspicion.

Seeing everyone silent, Difo became more and more certain of his guess in his heart, and could not help saying angrily, “Damn it, it must be exactly like this. We must find that traitor who eats inside and out!”

“Oh, may I ask how do you plan to find him?” a Regiment Leader said somewhat helplessly.

“Hand over all your Mages. I want to ‘interrogate’ them one by one!” Difo said haughtily.